tidalpoolstories with pictures, yo
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Wed, 19 Dec 2018 08:24:54 +0000Wed, 19 Dec 2018 08:24:54 +0000Jekyll v3.4.0Vignette - Piazza Maggiore<p>The brilliant mid-winter sun beat down on Piazza Maggiore in the heart of Bologna’s old town. For once tourists and locals thronged together because on a Saturday like this, just before Christmas, the square was irresistible to everyone. All around the Piazza stood the town’s proud heritage: statues, churches, libraries. Each of the tens of buildings around the vast square was an incredible edifice in its own right, but all together they dazzled in their medieval marble and brick glory.</p>
<p>But the focus was not on the buildings. In the square were a variety of rescue, police, and military vehicles. A giant crane. An armored personnel carrier. Young ladies in smart berrets with assault rifles at ease by their waists. A father handed his toddler up to an officer who stood on a rescue boat. The boat in turn rested on its trailer, parked on the marble pavers. “How did they get that thing in here?” He thought. The child was all smiles as the officer held him aloft amongst the civic finery.</p>
<p>He approached the giant church that faced the square and a soldier assured him it was open. Construction on the church had begun in the 14th century, and it rose to become the 10th largest church in the world. So no one much noticed it and he had the aircraft-hanger like space all to himself. After he had his fill of silence he went back outside to find a rescue demonstration under way. An 80 meter circle was cordoned off, and inside the ring firefighters wrapped a mannequin in blankets and gave it mouth to mouth. Eminem’s vigorous hit “Lose yourself” blared from the event speakers:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You better lose yourself in the music, the moment<br />
You own it, you better never let it go<br />
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow<br />
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime you better…</p>
</blockquote>
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Wed, 19 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/12/19/vignette-piazza-maggiore.html
http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/12/19/vignette-piazza-maggiore.htmlitaly,bolognaVignette - The night train<p>He was jet lagged from the flight over that morning and beyond tired. “Night Train” by Guns and Roses was playing on repeat in his head. “I don’t even like this song,” he thought to himself as he willed it to stop. It was not the first or the last time he would will it to stop. This cycle of having thoughts and then realizing they were repetitive was itself repetitive. He had had that thought a few times as well.</p>
<p>He had trouble understanding how to put the sheets on his bunk, and how many clothes to take off before sleeping. The other 3 men who joined him later found a big hairy American guy wearing pants, half covered by confused sheets, and snoring.</p>
<p>At 4:17am the porter awoke him gently, though of course the other 3 guys, bound for Rome, couldn’t help but stir as well.</p>
<p>“One how-er we arrive Bologna”<br />
“Huh?”<br />
“One how her we arrive Bologna”<br />
“Oh, ok. Thanks”.</p>
<p>Down the hall he found the door to the shower. It was a compact, naval affair. “Does this thing actually work?”. His thoughts were still sloppy but they had stopped repeating themselves and were at least topical. The shower worked. There was even a soap dispenser. When he got out he realized that he did not have a towel.</p>
<p>At 5:17am the train pulled into Bologna Centrale. He walked the length of the platform, still a little wet because paper towels don’t work well on big hairy guys. It was cold, raining lightly and he was at one with his surroundings: Dark, confused, damp.</p>
<p>Then a miracle, the station cafe was open. Busy even. He stopped in, ordered a cappuccino and a croissant. After paying he said thank you in German though he was in Italy. At a seat by the window he watched the dawn turn slightly grey as the rain fell on the steel rails of tracks 7 and 8.</p>
<p>The coffee was excellent. So was the croissant.</p>
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Wed, 19 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/12/19/vignette-night-train.html
http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/12/19/vignette-night-train.htmlgermany,italy,bolognaVignette - Ships passing in the morning<p>6:15am. Dark this time of year in Germany. His room was dark too,
because last night as he went to bed the fuse went out. It was
midnight then, so he didn’t want to wake his host about it. And anyway all he had to do now
was grab his things and go wait for the bakery next door to open.</p>
<p>In darkness he wound down the three spiraling flights of stairs and
fumbled with the lock. He dropped the keys in the
dish and clicked the door shut behind him. The next place over was the Bakery, opening in 4
minutes. Outside, lit only by the light from within, stood a woman
also waiting. She was dressed in fashionable but professional
clothes. Sensible heels. “Probably going to the airport too”, he thought.</p>
<p>They stood for a minute waiting and then she addressed him in German. “Ich
spreche kein…” So then in English she said “They are inside, but they will not open 1
minute early.”</p>
<p>He smiled. She went on, “I have been up all night so I am in a hurry to
get home.”</p>
<p>Her outfit made less sense now, at the end of a night shift.</p>
<p>“So this is your evening… I fly to the US today, so it is my morning. Today will last 30 hours.”</p>
<p>“Long day”, she said.</p>
<p>“What do you do?”, he asked.</p>
<p>“Midwife.”</p>
<p>“Oh wow. Was there a baby born this night?”</p>
<p>“Eight”</p>
<p>His eyes widened. Then the door to the bakery opened. She ordered
first. They waited for a minute. Maybe two.</p>
<p>“The babies were quicker!” she said. Then her order was ready and she left.</p>
<p>He got his cappuccino and croissant, and walked down to meet his train. Eight babies, he thought.</p>
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Fri, 30 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/11/30/vignette-ships-passing.html
http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/11/30/vignette-ships-passing.htmlgermanyVignette - Knowing me, knowing you, it's the best I can do<p>He needed headphones. So he was crossing the old town of Mainz from the Roman Theater train station (so named because it crowds the ruins of a Roman Amphitheater) down past the imposing red sandstone edifice of the cathedral, the Mainz Dom. The Dom was his north star, you could see it from anywhere. The thousand year old structure loomed over town like the alien ship that everyone looks up in horror to see. The headphone store was on the other side of it.</p>
<p>In the old town the cobblestone streets narrowed to the point where cars could not pass, though of course they were already not allowed out of common decency. The streets were lined with shops and punctuated with squares and plazas. It was Christmas season, and the banality of the shop decorations reminded him of an American shopping mall. Outside of a scented candle shop a woman was playing a kind of table harp. The complex instrument sat on a pedestal. A range of strings were packed into the compact space and she struck them with wooden mallets as if it were a xylophone. The tune was familiar, a fast paced Mozart number that he was certain had been used in Looney Tunes cartoons before. She had her hat out on the cobblestones, where Euro coins gleamed their recommendation of her skill.</p>
<p>He walked on, and as the sound of Beethoven faded behind him he was
greeted without pause by a great booming tenor voice. He didn’t know
the aria, but it was moving. The emotional notes were delivered with
raw power, producing a soulful, otherworldly sound. In one corner of
the square he found the tenor, looking with sad eyes off to one side, not connecting with the small crowd emotionally at all. The singer was obese, his hair a mess. He wore the kind of shoes you get when you have strange feet, poorly formed black shoes secured with velcro. And there by his shoes was a hat containing coins. At his side was a bluetooth boombox that you could only hear as you got close. It was playing the right opera, but its thin pale tinny noise did not belong in the same park with the man’s great voice.</p>
<p>The tenor now stared off silently while the hideous boombox played the music that would lead to the next singing part. He continued his walk, and as he rounded the corner of the great Mainz Dom he found himself crossing yet another square. Now a third song caught his ear, a sort of organ grinder instrumental version of ABBA’s “Knowing me knowing you”. Single notes played with perfectly even spacing, maniacal, relentless, robotic. God I hope that is a machine, he thought to himself as he reached the headphone store.</p>
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Thu, 29 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/11/29/vignette-knowing-me.html
http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/11/29/vignette-knowing-me.htmlgermanyVignette - The next Aperol Spritz<p>She asked the young man behind the bar what drink he was making. The man, a boy really, Hungarian, responded that he did not know. She asked him if the drink was for himself, revealing a German accent to her English. It was, he said smiling. Perhaps it will be the next Aperol Spritz, he added dryly.</p>
<p>She asked for a taste, and he made another just for her. How much; she asked the problematic question for of course the drink was not on the menu. He said no charge, not wanting to put a price on his invention. What after all was its value?</p>
<p>I will pay you something, she insisted. This is not regular and will not stand, her tone made clear. He smiled bashfully. She handed him a yellow note, enough to buy their nicest scotch, and walked away sipping at what could become the next Aperol Spritz.</p>
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Sun, 18 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/11/18/vignette-the-next-aperol-spritz.html
http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/11/18/vignette-the-next-aperol-spritz.htmlbudapest,hungary,vignetteVignette - The Cat<p>The man wore a Scottish style hat and spoke with an accent that
recalled the isles, but here in Budapest that meant nothing. From his
backpack he pulled a sweet white cat with a brave little face. This
seemed like the sort of thing a local would do, accent or not. The cat
was the belle of the establishment, loved and carried by each bartender in turn. After it made the rounds the cat sat on the bar alongside a glass of pilsner that towered over it. It crouched amongst the moist rings left by pints of beer and licked milk from its little bowl.</p>
<p>He looked down the bar at this scene and as he did, his view was blocked as the augmented lips of a middle aged Russian tourist closed around her liver sandwich. She bit down and tore away a chunk. As she leaned back to chew he could see the cat again, now licking its moist paw.</p>
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Sun, 18 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/11/18/vignette-the-cat.html
http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/11/18/vignette-the-cat.htmlbudapest,hungary,vignetteVignette - The Ruin Bars of Budapest<p>It had all the charm of Bourbon street, he thought unkindly. The vast complex was a festooned labyrinth of drinking tourists who passed from room to room not knowing when they had changed buildings, not even knowing when they were outside or in, so complete was the confusion of the multicolored, multileveled termite mound of debauchery.</p>
<p>He spoke to only one person while there. Ishmael from Mexico City. Ishmael had met his Viennese girlfriend in Tulum, Mexico (another great place to go to meet people who aren’t from there) and they were just on their way to the train station to see her hometown.</p>
<p>Drink finished, he had seen enough. But wait, what is down those stairs? Could the ruin go on? He began to step down and the bouncer said “Toilet”.</p>
<p>“Toilet?” he asked for clarification as he pointed down the stairs.</p>
<p>“Toilet.” the bouncer replied, but pointed instead across the hall to the signs for the toilet.</p>
<p>He didn’t need the toilet.</p>
<p>He left the bar. The stairs remained a mystery.</p>
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Sun, 18 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/11/18/vignette-ruin-bars.html
http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/11/18/vignette-ruin-bars.htmlbudapest,hungary,vignetteVignette - On the Road<p>At the airport everyone struggled to buy the tickets for the bus. 900 Hungarian Forints. And then the express arrived. A big jointed bus with two sections. It went directly from the airport into the heart of town. They all pressed in together, stumbling over each other’s rolly bags as they jostled for space. It was done with justice: the oldest had the seats. He was standing in the wheelchair space, for there was no wheelchair.</p>
<p>When a cab cut them off everyone crashed into everyone else. “Sorry, sorry. You ok?” Then after a while the bus stopped for good. Traffic. Slowly they inched forward, but it became clear that the only progress they made was to fill a spot left by some car that had turned around in frustration.</p>
<p>The two lane road would not allow the bus to turn around, so they waited until all the cars ahead had turned around and finally they were at the accident. Two smashed cars pointed the wrong way, airbags deflated, fluids leaking out. A firefighter guided the bus with arm gestures like those that had earlier guided their plane into its gate. Carefully the bus picked its path through the wreckage.</p>
<p>And they were through! The driver sped forward to make time, until again they stopped. The passengers caught one another and sorted out their apologies in French, English, Italian, so many languages. He pressed against the wall to clear the view forward and pointed. It dawned on the other passengers as well: ahead a rescue vehicle had collided with a car that was turning around to avoid the traffic, and now they too had become part of the incident.</p>
<p>The rescuer was smoking with the driver of the car he had hit. The puddle at their feet must not have been gasoline. The bus had to drive off into the weeds, but then it was free again and there was nothing to stop it.</p>
<p>Downtown the bus emptied and they all stood by their rolly bags on the sidewalk and took in the crumbling beauty of Budapest.</p>
Sun, 18 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/11/18/vignette-on-the-road.html
http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/11/18/vignette-on-the-road.htmlbudapest,hungary,vignetteVignette - Is this love that I'm feeling?<p>In the cafe the music is easy listening. Female singer, kind of jazzy. She has a lovely voice but the selection of covers is cruel. AC/DC’s “you shook me all night long”. “Valerie” (Amy Winehouse did it better of course) And what would Dolly Parton make of the reggae back-beat on “I will always love you”?</p>
<p>It was 9am, and outside on the narrow cobblestone streets couples stumbled arm in arm through Budapest’s party district. Nine in the morning was late, not early, and the cafes that changed from bars into cafes had not yet made the switch. The couples looked a bit rough, but the bartenders who would soon be baristas looked worse. Their job was harder. None of the patrons were likely to speak Hungarian, and they were bound to ask for a wild range of absurd things.</p>
<p>“Red bull and vodka”</p>
<p>“Unicum”</p>
<p>“Decaf”</p>
<p>“Can you make that fizzy one, you know with the orange?”</p>
<p>The song in the cafe was now a Whitesnake cover: “Is this love that I’m feeling”. It was early for him, not late, and he was focused on his work. But drunk couples were trying to win the morning cafe back over to the late night bar side. The next table over ordered prosecco and took selfies in front of the large assortment of cloth roses.</p>
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Sun, 18 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/11/18/vignette-is-this-love.html
http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/11/18/vignette-is-this-love.htmlbudapest,hungary,vignetteVignette - Baths<p>Four small triangular pools flanked the central circular pool. Massive pillars between the small and large pools supported the high dome of stone that covered it all. The baths stood over a fault line in the earth along the Danube River. Hot water bubbled up from the deep and poured into the pools from mineral crusted spouts. The dome was built by the Ottoman Turks, but the plastic bracelet that got him through the turnstile was new.</p>
<p>Each pool had a carved marble sign indicating the temperature in
celsius degrees: 28, 30, up to 42. From the coldest pool he watched
the columns of light shoot down from the ventilation holes in the dome
above and play on the misty air. It was dark, but not so dark that you
might trip as you moved from pool to pool to control your body’s temperature. It was co-ed day and people of every description passed before him as he lay like an alligator belly down on the submerged stairs with just his eyes and ears raised above the surface.</p>
<p>He closed his eyes and realized that though peaceful, it was actually quite loud. The echoes clamored and the people all around him were talking to be heard above the noise of each other. But most of the sounds were unfamiliar Hungarian and the hard surfaces and high ceilings echoed everything into a pleasant bass rumble, with the babbling water providing a counterpoint.</p>
<p>In a marble arched side room, a bucket filled with hot water
periodically dumped with a splash. This time a man screamed at the
shock of the water. The noise of the room became even louder in response to this event, sounds of concern and also laughter, before the rumble returned to its original timbre and continued on.</p>
<p>It’s been wet in here for 500 years, he thought.</p>
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Sun, 18 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/11/18/vignette-baths.html
http://www.tidalpool.org/2018/11/18/vignette-baths.htmlbudapest,hungary,vignette